Enjoy the series. Not saying folks shouldn't watch it. And it'd be good to see Vanderbilt win it for the SEC. But baseball is not a revenue sport. A quick check of the SEC's athletic budgets shows that to be true. And we -- since our beginning -- have covered just two sports.

Thus, it gets more than a little old when we're called out as anti-this school or anti-that school because we're not covering that school's run to a championship.

You're correct that college baseball gets more exposure than swimming, gymnastics, etc. But it's nowhere near the amount of coverage -- nor does it get the ratings -- of college football and college basketball.

Your Knoxville comment suggests that this site must be dissing Vandy because I happen to live outside Knoxville. OK. I'll use your logic. Why do you care about Vanderbilt? You live in Memphis... so you therefore are a Memphis fan.

So stop emailing me about an SEC school and just pull for your Tigers. After all, if you live in a place, you are a fan of the nearest school. That's why people move and take jobs, of course, to get closer to their favorite football or basketball team. Makes perfect sense.

We cover the two revenue sports in the SEC -- football and men's basketball. Period. That's it. Don't give a hoot in hell about any other sports... and neither do most folks, or else those sports would turn a profit, too.

If someone went back to see if MSU got a headline mention at some point during last year's CWS I applaud them... for having no life. I don't do headlines, so that's basically the call of either Josh or Mike. And if they don't think to include a link stating "THE CWS CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES STARTS TONIGHT, HOORAY!" I'm sure as hell not going to ask them to because I myself won't watch an inning of a sport played with aluminum bats and featuring 11.7 scholarship players.

I do see, however, that Josh did include a link today, after Game One. So enjoy it. Read it. Print it out and rooooooolll around on it. Savor it.

But the whole "MrSEC doesn't care" thing? Yep. Dead on. Like the vast majority of SEC fans, college baseball doesn't register a hot topic. And before you argue, remember that most SEC baseball stadiums draw between 2,000 and 10,000 fans. Oooooooh.

And one last note before you weep and whine that we're just picking on Vanderbilt. We get emails from Alabama fans wanting gymnastics championships mentioned, from Tennessee fans wanting women's basketball championships mentioned, etc. Swimming, track, softball, Chutes & Ladders, you name it. If a school's good at something, its fans suddenly expect a site that's covered two sports and two sports only for five-plus years to start wasting space on a sport that no one else really worries all that much about. So it's not Vanderbilt -- as much as you'd like to feel persecuted -- it's the sport.

It's also important to note that any school begging, pleading, crawling on its belly to land a spot in a Power Five league will be told exactly what's expected of it from an academic AND athletic standpoint from the start. If Rice wanted in, to use your example, you can bet its top brass would be told what the Big 12's admission standards are and how they would be expected to vote in any future discussions of those academic requirements. For example.

a) It doesn't have a great academic reputation. That's a bit of nonsense because none of these schools are diploma mills, but history shows us that Power Five presidents like to add big research schools, land-grant schools, AAU member schools, etc. And the ACC, like it or not, actually uses the USN&WR list you mock.

b) The Cougars' athletic spending ranked right about #80 in the nation in 2012-13, behind Old Dominion, James Madison, Yale, Penn, Temple, UCF, San Diego State, Memphis, Cincinnati, South Florida, and I could go on.

c) The two leagues most likely to snare Houston would appear to have no use for the school due to its location. The Big 12 already owns the state of Texas so it's hard to see them offering Houston. The SEC -- which flirted with Houston in the 1980s while trying to add Texas A&M -- already owns the Houston market with the Aggies. If ESPN ever told the SEC to add another Texas school, Texas would be the first call followed by SMU -- we believe -- due to its Dallas location.

No disrespect to Houston, but the tumblers don't seem to fall in their favor. From an athletics perspective, the school has had success in both major sports in the last 20-30 years.

Post whatever you like. That request went out the window a long time ago. I just got tired of writing a long piece based on reality and then finding a link to a messageboard post by Tider58 or GatorKing that someone viewed as "the real story." Plus, a lot of folks came here and linked to their own sites, which is pretty bush league in my view.

From what we've been told, one of the sticking points in the SEC Network negotiations with DirecTV and the cable giants is the fact that they don't want to pay full price for subscribers in Texas because the SEC doesn't "own" the state with just one team. True or not, that's being used a negotiation tool. So, the premise of your smart-aleck answer is bull. Sorry.

Now, that's likely to be worked out and it's doubtful that the SEC would EVER add a non-land grant school, especially one with a religious affiliation. But if ESPN and the SEC feel at some point that they do need another Texas school in another major market -- and Texas isn't interested in joining up -- SMU makes more sense from an academic and location perspective than any other Texas-based school. As I said, "Ain't happening," but fun to discuss.

As I wrote in the post above, to date we've not seen any Power Five leagues "gamble" on an up-and-comer.

Cincinnati was listed as one of four schools that we felt would have some shot of landing somewhere if there's growth in the Power Five (which would probably only happen in a Division IV universe).

East Carolina, as explained, ranks below 180 on the USN&WR list and its television market is just #99. Nothing against ECU, but any league's presidents would look at that school and say, "Do we really want a school who's reputation is fifth best in its own state?"

Cincinnati, however, makes sense on a number of levels... especially if they expand their tiny football stadium.

No one would credit NIU for being a big driver of the Chicago market. Academically the school ranks #177 and its athletic budget for 2012-13 was well beyond the top 100 cut-off line that we mentioned in the post. In fact, NIU's budget ranks below Columbia and Princeton and is just ahead of Quinnipiac.

Not really. Either a) those kids affected by coaching changes will be scrambling to find a new school before signing day... or b) those kids will receive releases from their signed letters and then start scrambling to find a new school.

Plays the same either way if there's an automatic release when a coach leaves.

Right now the FBS schools are trying to keep the FBS together. If the NCAA vote provides the Power Five conferences with the autonomy they're looking for, they'll continue to play nice with the rest of the FBS schools (by giving them some access to the College Football Playoff and its revenue).

If the NCAA vote of conference commissioners goes against the Power Five, they can simply take their ball (the playoff) and go home (with no invitations and no money for the smaller leagues).

No schools will leave the NCAA. Division IV would be set up atop Division I. Instead of 125 FBS schools (Division I), you'd have about 65 Division IV schools and 60 FBS schools.

It's all high-stakes poker at this point. The little guys don't want to fall further behind in terms of money (to schools handing out full-cost scholarships and medical insurance), but the Power Five conferences are betting that the little guys will at some point realize some money from the playoff is better than no money.

In case you're wondering, the new College Football Playoff is run by the conferences, not the NCAA. It's not like the NCAA Tournament at all. Just like the BCS, the biggest leagues have put this thing together. So if they choose to close it off to everyone else -- by starting a "Division IV" -- the NCAA can't/won't do a thing about it.

The vast majority of players now sign on signing day. With no signing day, a player would likely feel less pressure to sign on Day X because ESPN and Rivals and every other media outlet -- like this one -- wouldn't be going from dawn to dusk with signing day coverage. A kid could sign on his first day of eligibility. Or two months later. Or four months later, etc. There would be no set day.

Further, not every school in America closes up shop on the same day or even during the same week. Again, the media coverage -- which drives so much of the nonsense and inflates kids' egos -- would have to be spread out over a much longer period which would, again, dial down the pressure of one "National Signing Day."

If I were at the wheel, I'd put the date as the player's 17th birthday. There would be a lot less attention paid to some of these kids -- which would be a good thing -- if everyone's signing period began on a different date. And, as Johnson pointed out to the AJC, coaches would have to put up or shut up when it comes to their "offers." That, too, would benefit players.

As I've said, I agree with Pelini, Rodriguez and Johnson. Just nuke signing day altogether. It certainly wouldn't make the situation worse.

I don't really understand your question. We're comparing each school's cross-divisional foes. Tennessee plays Vanderbilt as an East foe. So does every other East team. Therefore no advantage is gained when it comes to the East race. Ole Miss plays Alabama as a West foe. So does every other West team. Therefore no advantage is gained when it comes to the West race.

We don't believe in crying about schedules anyway, but we knew some would. So we tried to point out -- based on history -- who would have the toughest cross-divisional schedules each season... thus who might or might not have an advantage in their divisional race.

Guys, I've pointed this out many times -- Vanderbilt and Ole Miss is one of the oldest rivalries in the league. While folks outside of those fanbases don't care too much about it, it's a game that's been played more than 80 times. So there are three games with some history to them.

Also, the league split the games in order to pair the six "power" teams at the time of expansion against one another, the four traditional also-rans against each other, and the two new teams against one another.

That was the initial rationale. A nine-game slate would have protected those games AND allowed teams to see each other more often AND still allowed teams to schedule one quality opponent per year. Ten good games is better than nine in my view.

If the league had gone to a 9-game schedule it would have clipped 7 games from the schedule. Instead, of 7 games with "SEC vs SEC" matchups, there will still be 14 games featuring "SEC vs ???" matchups.

But here's the issue: Would CBS and ESPN prefer seven guaranteed draw "SEC vs SEC" games to 14 "SEC vs what could be cupcake" games? The fact that the SEC took several years to arrive at this decision suggests the networks could have gone either way.

But as a viewer, would you prefer Alabama vs Georgia or Auburn vs South Carolina over Alabama vs TN-Chattanooga or Auburn vs Wofford? I know which way I'd go.

With a playoff selection committee now using strength of schedule to determine which four teams get in, I think playing laughers at the end of the year while teams from the other four major conferences are playing conference foes will only remind the panelists that SEC teams play eight league games while the others will likely be playing nine league games. And if the panel is looking to spread the wealth and prevent conferences from landing two teams in the playoffs -- and I believe that's exactly what they'll look to do -- then looking weak in the schedule department won't help.

And for those thinking, "Yeah, but the SEC is tougher," remember... the selection panel has people from all over the country and from all the power leagues. They might not share the SEC view that the SEC is much, much better than everyone else.

In five years of doing this site, I've found it to be pretty obvious that when any SEC school or coach is accused of wrongdoing, the other 13 rival fanbases declare "guilty!" and demand that heads roll. And if they don't, many then claim the the SEC or NCAA is protecting the accused.

I believe that's because we live in a society where people are just downright nasty these days. And it doesn't require a look into the MrSEC email box to realize people can be jerks. One only need read your latest anonymous comment.

No, it won the conference tournament in 2009 and 2012. We didn't count league tourneys in this piece because winning a 16- or 18-game season is much great accomplishment than getting hot over four-day stretch.

Uh, I believe if anyone sounds like a "SCREAMING INFANT!" it's you. And apparently your reading skills aren't too hot, either. You might want to check the third paragraph above, the very first example I gave:

"We’ve stated this view on previous occasions. Just last season, for example, Georgia had to face two starting quarterbacks with the SEC who had previously been drummed out of Athens. In the spring of 2009, freshman Zach Mettenberger was arrested. Reportedly, he then failed to come clean to Mark Richt about the circumstances of that arrest and he was dismissed. After a year at Butler Community College he transferred to LSU and almost knocked off Richt’s Bulldogs in a 44-41 thriller last year."

No hard feelings; I don't even know you. And as I said, thanks for coming by the site.

But for the record, to tell someone on their own site "you're no expert" is about the strongest insult you can throw at someone in my profession, especially someone who is often right enough in advance to document it and say, "We told you so."

Unfortunately, that is how the media works. Ever notice the number of times CNN or FOX News talk about "exclusive video" or an "exclusive interview?" Ever notice how many times local and national TV networks say, "As we first told you..."

Please remember that for every person like yourself, there's another guy on a messageboard or Twitter saying, "Those guys never get anything right," even though we do. Not everyone who visits this site is a regular reader. So what's wrong with providing a link to something we've written previously?

We started doing more of these promotions -- they're called "POPs" or Proof Of Performance spots in the TV industry -- when another site focusing on the SEC launched a few years after we did and began to write in every single story, "You heard it hear first," "As we first told you," and "We were the first to report this." Trouble is, that site was writing things that we'd written YEARS before they launched. Now, if you wrote something and then watched someone else write the same thing and claim that they wrote it first, that might bother you, too.

And it's not always about us. We drew attention to the fact that another site claimed to ask a question that no one else had asked. We pointed out that a Google search quickly revealed that Tony Barnhart (then of The AJC) and MrSEC.com had indeed already asked the same question 48 hours prior and a simple search would have revealed that.

But this explanation will not satisfy you and that's fine.

As for not being an expert, this site used to crank out 10 to 15 stories and blurbs per day. We've done radio interviews everywhere from New Orleans to New Zealand (literally) and for three years I represented the site as a weekly SEC analyst on CSS. I'm not sure if you do any of that, but thanks for the insult nonetheless.

Now, I'm not writing as much as I used to because people's lives change. We do one batch of headlines each day as a service to our readers, but I don't post that. How that negates any sources or views I might have, I'm not sure. When this site started, there were no other SEC sites and the websites for local papers around the league did nothing in the "links to other schools" department. That's all changed since 2008.

But the bottom line is this: If you can point out an incident where we've said "You read it here first" and you actually didn't, have at it. Otherwise, the fact that we can write "told ya so" so often might just tell you that we do know a little bit more about the SEC than you seem to give us credit for.

If you read the piece we linked to you'll see where about half of Rivals' top 100 football players have come from the SEC footprint the last three years... While only about one quarter of top 100 basketball players have come from the same region over the same time period.

For the record, this fact was pointed out to me by a former SEC assistant coach.

No, I think it's the same for everyone. I've done this site for five years and judging by the number of Tennessee fans who've called me a "hater" over the years, I think I've proven that my current residence has little to do with what I write. If these schools were flip-flopped and Tennessee had had a man go to the NCAA, help to nuke an Auburn coach, return to Tennessee and clear the same man for hiring, I can assure you I would be writing the very same thing today.

As I pointed out in the piece, Auburn fans would see a conflict of interest had an Alabama employee gone to the NCAA, etc, etc.

Also, there's a huge distance between a conspiracy theory and a conflict of interest. This issue simply exposes the conflict of interest claims that the NCAA faces regularly. I saw Missouri fans claim that a Kansas grad working for the NCAA was going to hammer Frank Haith. Tennessee fans will now cite a conflict of interest in the NCAA's handling of the Pearl case. Other critics of the NCAA will likely state the same... if they're not all too busy praising the hiring of Pearl (though most of the same folks had screamed for his firing three years ago).

The issue is that the NCAA employs people who have ties to major universities with major athletic departments. Perhaps the NCAA enforcement arm should field a team of people who graduated from Ivy League schools only. (Kidding.)

On a sidenote, however, the single greatest frustration of doing this site is the fact that by currently living outside of Knoxville I'm viewed as some sort of Tennessee honk. I suppose Tony Barnhart hears this about Georgia and Chris Low hears it about Tennessee, as well. It doesn't matter than I grew up in Kentucky or lived in North Carolina or Ohio... I'm in Knoxville now so that must mean I picked up, changed jobs, moved to town all because I wanted to be a Tennessee sports fan. Absurd. But you and others will continue to claim it. And if I moved outside of the SEC footprint, anything readers didn't like they'd simply say: "He must be a Big Ten fan." Ah, well.

You suggest we missed something. We did not. Auburn has been on probation more than any other SEC school. You are the one trying to "yeah, but" it away by saying there's been no MAJOR probation since 1990.

And, yes, we're talking history. How else do you label a school? You base it on history.

Go back and do your own homework and you'll find that this was about the only non-Auburn site in the world that said throughout the Cam Newton affair, "looks bad, sounds bad, but there's no evidence." We're fair here. And to correctly state that AU has a long record of NCAA missteps and to point out that someone's always accusing the Tigers of something isn't misleading in the least. Those are facts.

The RPI is a computer formula like the BCS. The NCAA has its own formula that it uses. Others try to figure out what that formula is and mimic it. We've done this for 5 or so years and we've found that RealTimeRPI.com comes closest to the NCAA's formula (in our view). Joe Lunardi/ESPN have one of the many other formulas. And then some folks just do their own computer formulas (Ken Pomeroy, for instance, has a poll that doesn't even try to mimic the NCAA's formula).

So since they all have different formulas and different rankings for the teams, they're bound to list different records for, say, "Vs Top 50 RPI," etc. Whoever says Arkansas is 4-3 vs RPI top 50 teams must not have Missouri in their top 50.

We use Rivals recruiting rankings for football. For basketball, we've found RealTimeRPI.com (a paysite for their actual up-to-date numbers) to be the most accurate service when it comes to matching up with the NCAA's final RPIs on Selection Sunday.

You can go and double-check my work there, as you are wont to do. Keep in mind, their numbers might have been updated since I posted these.

The only record that might be different is Tennessee's overall mark of 18-11. That is not their correct record. Their actual record is 17-11 as listed above as that's all the NCAA will look at on Selection Sunday. The Vols played a third exhibition game right around the turn of the year. They won it, but the NCAA won't count it in terms of RPI or SOS.u

Fair enough. We're all too quick to ASSUME what some other guy is trying to say and why he's trying to say it.

Congrats on your scholarly efforts. I'll look up your book. And since we're clarifying our backgrounds, I was in Vicksburg last July 4th to stand where Francis Marion Pennington and Robert Snead Pennington stood and surrendered with the 43rd Tennessee 150 years earlier.

Many interpretations of that war. Sadly for Ole Miss, their traditions drag them into Civil War, racism, and "Old South" conversations every time some moron on their campus behaves boorishly. Which was the initial point of this piece.

Complaining? It's a statement of fact when I write that the league stinks. I could care less, personally, so it's not a complaint.

And as I re-read this piece, I sure as hell see no "rant" anywhere in it. There's what I write and what others read -- everyone brings their own views and emotions into a story -- but I don't see how anyone could read this piece from start to finish and miss the point entirely.

As for defending the coaches, that's in your head. First, I simply showed that the standards have changed (which is a fact) and then I made it clear that Newton and DeVoe's views -- while they may sound nice and in a perfect world might mean something -- actually mean nothing at all.

But thanks for the angry, sarcastic misinterpretation. Feel better to get that off your chest?

I don't think the words "slave beaters" were tied together anywhere in the piece above.

Also, I would suggest you dig through the papers of the period -- The Charleston Mercury being one example -- to see just how many hundreds of times slavery was listed as the A-1 cause of the war before, during and after the fight... and how many times the abandonment of slavery was predicted to be the end of the Southern way of life.

I believe you missed the point of what was written: Because of Ole Miss' history and traditions, any time one or two idiots do something stupid it will draw national attention (from The LA Times to The New York Times) which makes the jobs of Hugh Freeze and Andy Kennedy tougher.

Pretty straight-forward, I thought.

Also, judging by your post you missed this line from our story: "To be sure, there's racism in every corner of the globe."

Go back and check our weekly posts last year. Lunardi writes based only on today's numbers without looking ahead. Look ahead at Tennessee schedule -- for example -- and you'll see that their SOS number and RPI will likely drop with two really bad teams left to play.

How anyone can not see that playing more plays increases the risk of injury is beyond me. Just amazing. Stunning really.

And I made it clear that I think it'd be good for the game aesthetically to be slowed down (just as basketball needed speeding up). I never claimed to favor the rule as an injury-prevention method, though it should be obvious that playing more plays does increase the risk of injury.

If I smoke for one year and you smoke for 20, yes, I could be the one who gets lung cancer. But your risk of lung cancer would still be mathematically greater than mine.

Probably, but I didn't mention Missouri's SOS because it's not as big a deal. Tennessee's best number is its SOS. Missouri, though, has a better record, much better RPI, better road record, no losses outside the top 100, a better "best win," and they've also got a win over Tennessee. As far as earning a third bid for the SEC, Mizzou is in the catbird seat (at the moment).

What's incredibly predictable and pathetic is the fact that the folks who are saying no huddle offenses -- sorry, NUNH -- are fine and dandy all seem to be fans of teams who run that offense.

Personally, I could give a hoot in hell if any of these SEC schools won. I'm just pointing out that injuries have been on the rise at every level since this up-tempo trend went global.

You can say that's just a big coincidence, but you can't deny that more stars have been going down across the SEC (and the NFL) over the last couple of years. Unless, of course, you've been on an island with no SportsCenter or internet connection.

Yes, I wrote something you disagreed with... so I must be an Alabama fan. Can I forward this post to all those Bama fans who called me an Auburn fan when I said Saban should've immediately booted four guys from his program last spring?